Shakti – New technology for spiritual process.
Todd Murphy Researching
Behavioral Neuroscientist Laurentian University
Behavioral neurosciences program Associate researcher.
www.spiritualbrain.com (Part 4 of 5)
What the hypothesis says is that when activity in a given brain part on one side of the brain (or an entire hemisphere more generally) becomes active enough, crossing a threshold, the activity can spill over into the same structure on the opposite side of the brain. Given that most brain parts have symmetrically opposite functions (‘functional homologues on the two sides of the brain, the phenomena that accompanies this is a dramatic shift in the person’s experience. My fear and anxiety didn’t just stop. It turned into the opposite. Bliss. Joy. So wonderful to be alive. Just to see the sky is ecstasy. Each person is beautiful. My right amygdala had been active. Now it was quiet, after applying the amygdala’s signal only over the left side. I had been in anxiety and pessimism, living in a storm of awful thoughts for a few days.
Now, I was in bliss.
Other things had happened. My week with an active right amygdala seems to have recruited my right hippocampus, too. And many of it’s associated phenomena only emerged when my right amygdala was told to shut up. I could heal by laying on hands. I tested it many times. That’s tapered off a bit in four years since all this happened, but not without many ups and downs as my own Shakti session designs change. I could also do remote viewing, but like many who’ve had the experience, I chose not to practice it, because I found myself uncomfortable at some of the things I saw. I did confirm some of these perceptions, though. I saw auras, too, but not in the brilliant colors some psychics describe. Just faint glows around people when I looked for them. I experienced quite a lot of hypnogogic phenomena, too. Brief perceptions, clearly from within, that happened while I was falling asleep.
I continued doing sessions, but I didn’t really experience anything new using the DAC, with it’s single signal, until I got a new wave form from Dr. Persinger. It belonged to the hippocampus, a cognitive structure. One that deals in words on the left and in non-verbal cognition on the right. Soon, I knew what it would do on both sides of the brain. On the right, it quieted mental chatter and enhanced visualization skills. It also enhances what’s called ‘positive thinking’; the expectation of positive outcomes for ongoing events. On the left, it encouraged mental chatter, and negative expectations for the outcomes of ongoing events. Over both sides, it reduced the intensity of emotions overall. Shakti results continue to support these generalizations, although they have yet to be published. So, now I could apply the amygdaloid signal over the left – OR – the hippocampal signal over the right.
The trouble was that left amygdaloid activation tended to spill over to the right amygdala (via the anterior commisure), and right hippocampal activation tended to spill into the right amygdala, too (via their extensive connections). I wanted to do both at once. And for that I need two signals at once. I wanted a stereo DAC. But none existed. I’d have to go without it or invent it myself. So that’s what I did. The only audio equipment I had to work with was a computer sound card, so that’s what I worked with. I recorded the sounds the DAC made, as though the signals were common sounds. I saw instantly that it wasn’t the same. Not even close. I set out to find a software that would let me create sound files for a PC, using the wave forms provided by Dr. Persinger as templates. Seven drafts, and scores of audio softwares later, I had files that worked. A bit further along, I had a CD that played the sound files. Designing the Shakti helmet was another matter. Unlike the Koren helmet, it had to have safety as it first concern. That meant, of course, that it had to have separate output to the two sides of the brain. It also had to omit all signals not specifically derived from neural brain structures.
Knowing that a given effect emerges from a structure on one side allows one to stop the effect by applying the same signal to the other side. Anything Shakti can do, it can undo, if the person uses their tech support and follows the procedures. Also, the helmet had to have coils outside the temporal lobes, so that repeated use would not quieten the parietal and especially the frontal lobes. Further, the rotating coils used in some Koren helmets needed to be omitted. They recruit larger areas of the brain, more than what is needed to elicit experiences. It’s also less well-tested in Persinger’s labs for repeated use. Once I had the invention, it needed to be tested on more people than just myself if it was ever going to be more than only my own plaything. And, in spite of the many studies done at Laurentian University, it could be argued that the safety of the sessions found there did not apply to self-administration of two signals at once.
When I ran the first successful Shakti session, using a sound card and an impromptu headset improvised from two sets of DAC coils, I was satisfied. I won’t go into the details, because, as It’s inventor I have a stake in what’s said about it. Once others began using it, those with more dispassion than I, began to speak. They also have more typical brains than I have. Mine has TLE in it’s past. Others don’t. I offered prototypes of Shakti from my website at www.spiritualbrain.com and right away I began to get applications to participate in a safety study. I had to start with a safety study, of course. I had to begin saying that we didn’t know how safe it was for individuals to use it themselves. But that didn’t stop a lot of people, mostly men, from applying to participate.
After about a year, it became apparent that Shakti was safe. There were a couple of incidents. One man, using the standard helmet and CD, found himself having too many moments when he had a word on the tip of his tongue that he couldn’t get out, and a growing sense of detachment that interfered with his work in sales. I knew that these were moments when the right hippocampus was more active than the left. He had been using Shakti for weeks, experiencing this, but not availing himself of tech support. In the end, he corrected things using the left side signal only, applied over the left side. In spite of his experience, he later wrote that he’d give up his Shakti when it was pried from his “cold, dead fingers.” A few people have had passing headaches. These are also associated with the hippocampal signal, and they seem to stop using the left channel alone, or using common headache pills. They really aren’t headaches, actually. They’re better described as feelings of pressure. They tend to happen for a few sessions (when they happen at all), and then to stop. Less than 15% of Shakti users get them at all. Those are the two most unpleasant and common side effects of Shakti, now with over a hundred users.
End of Part 4…
Copyright: Todd Murphy, Author and AVS Journal, Michael Landgraf, Publisher (2006) Granada Hills, CA. All rights reserved.